A timepiece has the primary object of indicating time and other information such as the date and/or the day as the primary function. Recently, it has been possible to provide a timepiece with more complicated functions as the secondary functions, some of which have information to be indicated on setting or during operation, but the necessity of indication is somewhat less important on ordinary conditions.
For example, in the highly programmed timepiece that has the function of automatic correction of date at the end of the month as the second function, information on year and month needs to be indicated on the dial. In this case, the indication of the information on year and month is necessary to be made only while setting the real date and/or day and less important otherwise because the user always remembers the real year and month. Furthermore, in situations where the timepiece with a slow and fast adjusting member is operable outside of the case as the second function, it is difficult to precisely control the amount of adjustment, if the amount is controlled by the rotational angle of the adjusting spindle or the like. Such a manner of adjustment is not applicable to highly precise timepieces such as those of the crystal oscillator type.
It is desirable to indicate other situations than the above. For example, in timepieces with a chronographic second function, the designation of the time-measuring mode in a chronograph: namely, the previous setting of the mode for split hand, for time interval, for integrating or for zero-reset, in timepieces with an alarm device as the second function which is capable of setting a plurality of alarming times, the setting of the alarming time in the watch or clock or the designation of the figure to be corrected on the setting operation in the digital watch or clock needs to indicate information.
If the information on the various kinds of functions set forth above is always indicated on the timepiece dial, the display surface would be unduly complicated.